Circuit widths and nodes of semiconductor wafers have been continually shrinking down to less than 20 nm. Therefore, modern wafer fabs enforce extremely strict process control to prevent wafer quality failures. A wafer processing chamber is now frequently cleaned to remove residual chemicals and impurities. Yu et al. show that such cleaning operations significantly change the tool operation of single-armed cluster tools, and they suggest an idea of partial wafer loading to improve the tool throughput under cleaning requirements. However, little is known about how a dual-armed tool could be effectively scheduled when chamber cleaning exists. A dual-armed robot allows more flexible tool operational sequences, and hence, the scheduling problem becomes further complicated and challenging. In this paper, we propose a scheduling method by which the dual arms can be properly exploited for better tool productivity. We show that the suggested hybrid sequence significantly reduces the tool cycle time as compared to previously developed scheduling methods. Through this research, we conclude that the productivity gain of the dual arms against single arm is more significant when chambers are cleaned.

中文翻译：

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安排双臂集群工具进行腔室清洁操作


半导体晶圆的电路宽度和节点不断缩小至20纳米以下。因此，现代晶圆厂执行极其严格的工艺控制，以防止晶圆质量问题。现在经常清洁晶圆处理室以去除残留的化学物质和杂质。余等人。研究表明，这种清洁操作显着改变了单臂集群工具的工具操作，并且他们提出了一种部分晶圆装载的想法，以提高清洁要求下的工具吞吐量。然而，当存在室清洁时，如何有效地安排双臂工具却知之甚少。双臂机器人允许更灵活的工具操作顺序，因此调度问题变得更加复杂和具有挑战性。在本文中，我们提出了一种调度方法，通过该方法可以正确利用双臂以获得更好的工具生产率。我们表明，与之前开发的调度方法相比，建议的混合序列显着缩短了工具周期时间。通过这项研究，我们得出结论，当腔室被清洁时，双臂相对于单臂的生产率增益更为显着。